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Category Archives: growth

Today, I’d like to talk about something very important, that concerns all of us (unless you happen to be a hermit).

I think that there is a shortage of really, really, good relationships in the world. Partly because people don’t know what a good relationship is. Partly because people don’t bother to have relationships that extend beyond drunken hazes during the weekend, talking about the latest football game or shopping for shoes.

Look, I was there too! I had those relationships too. I did the ”lets-get-drunk-and-party-all-night”. I did the ”we share a hobby, so might as well hangout”. Honestly, there were some good times with those relationships too. But I will tell you now, that those good times do not come close to what I have now.

Relationships are like food. With food, you have the more healthy stuff (broccoli, fruits) and then you have the less healthy food (fast-food, high sugar content). It is of course your right to eat fast-food every day of the week if you’d want to, but it is going to have negative consequences for you in the long run.

It is the same for shallow relationships. Relationships that base themselves on mere hobbies, that base themselves on ”Oh, you were born in the same geographical place as me? Let’s be friends!”. These kinds of relationships are the junk-food of social interaction.

Because they do not challenge you. They do not spark growth in you. How could they? If you have a relationship with someone because you happen to cheer for the same sports-team, what in that relationship will inspire growth in you as a human being?

With challenge, I am not talking about abusive or mean. I am talking about being in a relationship where what you say and do might be questioned, not out of spite or malice, but because the other person is both curious and cares about you. Someone who challenges you when you say something that does not make sense to them.

It matters where you put your time. If you spend time playing a guitar, eventually if you keep up with it, you’ll be good at playing the guitar. If you spend time in shallow relationships, you’ll be good at shallow relationships.

The only kind of relationship that can inspire growth in you is challenging ones! Because being challenged means finding new ways of thinking. New paradigms, new perspectives. You change because you are presented with new information.

Spending time being challenged and challenging others, will have you become better and better at just that. Which in turn has you become better and better at growing as a person. The broccoli of relationships are the deep ones. The ones where you discuss important things, things that impact you in your own life. Because anyone can talk about abstract things way out there, like string-theory and life on other planets. That isn’t challenging to your personal life. What is challenging, is to talk about the things that affect you. That tangent YOUR experience as a human being.

And you would want to do it for several reasons. You’d do it because you love learning. You love truth. You love having your beliefs challenged. But most importantly, you’d do it because you want to really have a deep, strong, serious relationship with another human being. To share life’s challenges with. To laugh with, to cry with, to explore the wonderful thing that being alive is.